Bishop) wrote:
>In article <abkhbhF51u...@mid.individual.net>, Robert Bannister
><rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>>On 16/09/12 12:25 AM, tony cooper wrote:
>[snip]
>>>> I've always assumed anyone in the "WE BUY GOLD" business is either a
>>>> criminal or, at best, a scammer. I have no idea where people go to sell
>>>> gold at a price near its value, but I don't it's any of these places.
>>> I don't understand why you think it would be a criminal operation or a
>>> scam. Scrap is scrap, whether it is gold or tin cans. Would you
>>> think an automobile junk yard, a scrap metal place, or a place that
>>> buys empty cans to be a scam or a criminal activity?
>>Most of them are.
>I don't think so. Reports are that many of them are up to no good, not
>paying attention to the rules and regulations about running a scrap metal
>yard. There are articles about the problems here in LA, CA and the task
>forces that are being used to try and do something about it.
>I suppose this is criminal behavior, but I don't think they fit the
>description of scams. Some, sure, many, maybe.
There is a type of "scam" in the UK in which unwanted clothes are
collected from people's homes so as to be sold as a way of raising money
for named charities. The collector delivers a label saying what the
collection is about and the day that he/she will return. The idea is
that if you have old clothes to donate you put them in a plastic bag and
leave the bag outside the front door on the stated day.
That report is five years old so the deatils may have changed since
then. However, the advice is still to avoid such collections and give
items directly to your charity of choice.
Bishop) wrote:
>In article <v6ea58tqbd9v1pald8al0jpu2rdttom...@4ax.com>, tony cooper
><tony.cooper...@gmail.com> wrote:
>[snip]
>>There have been several denominations of US gold coins, and each
>>denomination was of a different size. I happen to own some US gold
>>coins, and popped three of them on the scanner along with a common US
>>quarter for size comparison.
>>These coins are "slabbed". I sent them to a third-party grading
>>service. The grading service - NGC - graded the coins and returned
>>them sealed in plastic containers that cannot be opened without
>>breaking them. Should I sell them, this assures the buyer that the
>>grade assigned has been set by a professional. Numismatic coins are
>>valued according to type, date, and condition.
>Do you trust the company you sent the coins to?
Most assuredly. There are three major third-party graders of coins,
and NGC is one of them. They are extremely well-regarded by both coin
dealers and coin collectors.
>I assume so, and also that
>there is no reason not to. I just thought that if this company was a scam,
>what better way to substitute your coin with an inferior one that is
>sealed and can't be tested further without breaking the seal.
There are two benefits of using a third-party grader: assigning a
grade to a coin that is not contested, and providing a sealed slab.
This benefits the seller when he sells the coin to an unknown (to him)
buyer. The buyer can't say the seller over-graded the coin, and the
buyer can't return a different coin of a lesser grade saying it wasn't
what was advertised. If the coin is returned to the seller, it must
be returned in the sealed slab which has a serial number.
>>>On Sep 16, 6:45!m, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 15:09:57 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>>>> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>> >If a loaf of bread cost 35c in 1971 (or whenever we started being able
>>>> >to buy gold at $35 an ounce), then if the increase in the price of
>>>> >gold tracked inflation, a loaf of bread would sell for ca. $17 today.
>>>> When a missionary in Zululand sent his son to school at Michaelhouse, 200
>>>> miles away, at the age of 12, he walked there, driving his fees with
>him, with
>>>> the aid of a Zulu cowboy.
>>>> That was in the 1850s, and the fees were 10 cows.
>>>> The school fees are still the equivalent of 10 cows today, which just
>goes to
>>>> show that Zulu ideas about economics were better.
>>>What it shows was that education was vastly less available 150 years
>>>ago. It wasn't a Zulu boy, but a white boy who went to that school.
>>So it was, but measuring wealth by cattle was a Zulu idea, and it has shown
>>itself to be inflation-proof.
>I just noticed that PTD felt the need to "correct" you when you hadn't
>mentioned the race of the student. In fact, it would have probably been
>unusual to have a Zulu missionary, and this was a good clue it was a white
>student.
The race of the student was irrelevant to the story; the point was the fees at
the school remaining constant for 150 years in terms of cattle, but increasing
greatly in other currency.
The missionary was in Zululand at a time when cattle were the only recognised
medium of exchange.
Another interesting contrast between then and now: in some societies parents
drive their children to school by car even if the school is only a few blocks
away. Back then a child of 12 walked a couple of hundred miles to school.
-- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
>>> >I've always assumed anyone in the "WE BUY GOLD" business is either a
>>> >criminal or, at best, a scammer. I have no idea where people go to sell
>>> >gold at a price near its value, but I don't it's any of these places.
>>> As =A0Tony pointed out,these places will buy broken or damaged jewelry wh=
>>ere
>>> its value is mostly the gold content. I do think they take into account
>>> the refining that will need to be done to get the gold in a salable
>>> condition, and then lower the quoted price below that.
>>> An investigative reporter could check.
>>> >> Do the people in Turkey use gold as currency?
>>> >Does anyone use gold as currency anymore?
>>> I don't think so. But since Mr. Gursey mentioned the trade in gold in
>>> Turkey, I wondered if part of it was currency. I assume not though.
>>US gold coins were tiny before they went out of circulation in 1933 --
>>my father once showed me a $1 gold coin; it was considerably smaller
>>and thinner than a dime. (I don't know why he hadn't redeemed it for
>>silver coins in 1933 -- he was 15 for most of that year -- nor what
>>happened to it.)
> If gold was, roughly $35/ounce then, a $1 gold coin would now be 35/1700
> smaller, roughly 1/50th the size. Hard to keep track of.
There's no need to make it ridiculously small, it would just
contain more copper, silver, or whatever they usually mix
the gold with.
> On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 15:09:57 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> If a loaf of bread cost 35c in 1971 (or whenever we started being able
>> to buy gold at $35 an ounce), then if the increase in the price of
>> gold tracked inflation, a loaf of bread would sell for ca. $17 today.
> When a missionary in Zululand sent his son to school at Michaelhouse, 200
> miles away, at the age of 12, he walked there, driving his fees with him, with
> the aid of a Zulu cowboy.
> That was in the 1850s, and the fees were 10 cows.
> The school fees are still the equivalent of 10 cows today, which just goes to
> show that Zulu ideas about economics were better.
I once checked the gold price against typical military salary in (Greek or Roman) ancient and modern times, and apart from recent instability in gold price, it has been roughly stable.
> In article <abkhbhF51u...@mid.individual.net>, Robert Bannister
> <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>> On 16/09/12 12:25 AM, tony cooper wrote:
> [snip]
>>>> I've always assumed anyone in the "WE BUY GOLD" business is either a
>>>> criminal or, at best, a scammer. I have no idea where people go to sell
>>>> gold at a price near its value, but I don't it's any of these places.
>>> I don't understand why you think it would be a criminal operation or a
>>> scam. Scrap is scrap, whether it is gold or tin cans. Would you
>>> think an automobile junk yard, a scrap metal place, or a place that
>>> buys empty cans to be a scam or a criminal activity?
>> Most of them are.
> I don't think so. Reports are that many of them are up to no good, not
> paying attention to the rules and regulations about running a scrap metal
> yard. There are articles about the problems here in LA, CA and the task
> forces that are being used to try and do something about it.
> I suppose this is criminal behavior, but I don't think they fit the
> description of scams. Some, sure, many, maybe.
The specific issue with gold buyers in Portugal is that they might as well have a sign saying 'come, steal your aunt's trinkets and we'll give you cash for them'.
I don't know about scrap metal yards. It seems that anything that has to do with cars attracts criminal types, and then there's all the victims that are disposed of by being hidden there.
>> In article <abkhbhF51u...@mid.individual.net>, Robert Bannister
>> <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>>> On 16/09/12 12:25 AM, tony cooper wrote:
>> [snip]
>>>>> I've always assumed anyone in the "WE BUY GOLD" business is either a
>>>>> criminal or, at best, a scammer. I have no idea where people go to sell
>>>>> gold at a price near its value, but I don't it's any of these places.
>>>> I don't understand why you think it would be a criminal operation or a
>>>> scam. Scrap is scrap, whether it is gold or tin cans. Would you
>>>> think an automobile junk yard, a scrap metal place, or a place that
>>>> buys empty cans to be a scam or a criminal activity?
>>> Most of them are.
>> I don't think so. Reports are that many of them are up to no good, not
>> paying attention to the rules and regulations about running a scrap metal
>> yard. There are articles about the problems here in LA, CA and the task
>> forces that are being used to try and do something about it.
>> I suppose this is criminal behavior, but I don't think they fit the
>> description of scams. Some, sure, many, maybe.
> There is a type of "scam" in the UK in which unwanted clothes are
> collected from people's homes so as to be sold as a way of raising money
> for named charities. The collector delivers a label saying what the
> collection is about and the day that he/she will return. The idea is
> that if you have old clothes to donate you put them in a plastic bag and
> leave the bag outside the front door on the stated day.
> That report is five years old so the deatils may have changed since
> then. However, the advice is still to avoid such collections and give
> items directly to your charity of choice.
I think there was an expose of a similar business in Toronto within the past year or so. Any other Canadians remember? I didn't agree with one of the complainants, who disliked the fact that the library to which she donated books sold them second-hand. I've always understood that any books, CDs etc I give to a library may end up in their sale instead of on their shelves. The other cases, one in particular, worked much as described. Someone who didn't want to give an interview on camera did deals with certain local charities to use their names, collect on their behalf, and pass on a percentage - an extremely small percentage - of the proceeds. Technically, it wasn't a scam, I suppose, since they had the right to use the names, but it was very misleading.
I had a friend who, when a desperate student, worked for someone who claimed to have been hired to raise money for a children's sports program. In fact, it was one of these outfits, and they decided to stiff their workers as well. She was the only one to file a formal complaint against them with the government, but she got her money! The sports group didn't get much at all.
On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:20:17 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net>
wrote:
>Another interesting contrast between then and now: in some societies parents
>drive their children to school by car even if the school is only a few blocks
>away. Back then a child of 12 walked a couple of hundred miles to school.
On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:20:33 +0100, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
<m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:20:17 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net>
>wrote:
>>Another interesting contrast between then and now: in some societies parents
>>drive their children to school by car even if the school is only a few blocks
>>away. Back then a child of 12 walked a couple of hundred miles to school.
>Daily?
As I said, it was about 200 miles.
Go figure, as they say in AmE.
-- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:20:17 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
>>Another interesting contrast between then and now: in some societies parents
>>drive their children to school by car even if the school is only a few blocks
>>away. Back then a child of 12 walked a couple of hundred miles to school.
> Daily?
and uphill both ways
-- A lot of people never use their intiative because no-one
told them to. --- Banksy
> In article <8t4c58p3om5gsedkecf55mgn5pnkk05...@4ax.com>,
> hayes...@yahoo.com wrote:
> >On Sun, 16 Sep 2012 05:58:48 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
> ><gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >>On Sep 16, 6:45 am, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> >>> On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 15:09:57 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
> >>> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >>> >If a loaf of bread cost 35c in 1971 (or whenever we started being able
> >>> >to buy gold at $35 an ounce), then if the increase in the price of
> >>> >gold tracked inflation, a loaf of bread would sell for ca. $17 today.
> >>> When a missionary in Zululand sent his son to school at Michaelhouse, 200
> >>> miles away, at the age of 12, he walked there, driving his fees with
> him, with
> >>> the aid of a Zulu cowboy.
> >>> That was in the 1850s, and the fees were 10 cows.
> >>> The school fees are still the equivalent of 10 cows today, which just
> goes to
> >>> show that Zulu ideas about economics were better.
> >>What it shows was that education was vastly less available 150 years
> >>ago. It wasn't a Zulu boy, but a white boy who went to that school.
> >So it was, but measuring wealth by cattle was a Zulu idea, and it has shown
> >itself to be inflation-proof.
> I just noticed that PTD felt the need to "correct" you when you hadn't
> mentioned the race of the student. In fact, it would have probably been
> unusual to have a Zulu missionary, and this was a good clue it was a white
> student.
Are you unfamiliar with the very sad history of what is now the
Republic of South Africa?
Does it occur to you that the "Zulu cowboy" might have liked to have
his own son get an education, but that was not a possibility?
Is it, perhaps, ironic that a mere missionary could afford to spend
the enormous sum of 10 cattle? Where did his wealth come from?
On Sep 18, 7:27 am, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:20:33 +0100, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
> <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
> >On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:20:17 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net>
> >wrote:
> >>Another interesting contrast between then and now: in some societies parents
> >>drive their children to school by car even if the school is only a few blocks
> >>away. Back then a child of 12 walked a couple of hundred miles to school.
> >Daily?
> As I said, it was about 200 miles.
Then why did you mention the comparison with a daily or twice-daily
commute? (The reason they do that, BTW, is paranoia about
kidnappings.)
On Sep 18, 8:30 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> On 2012-09-18, Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote:
> > On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:20:17 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net>
> > wrote:
> >>Another interesting contrast between then and now: in some societies parents
> >>drive their children to school by car even if the school is only a few blocks
> >>away. Back then a child of 12 walked a couple of hundred miles to school.
>> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:20:17 +0200, Steve Hayes<hayes...@telkomsa.net>
>> wrote:
>>> Another interesting contrast between then and now: in some societies parents
>>> drive their children to school by car even if the school is only a few blocks
>>> away. Back then a child of 12 walked a couple of hundred miles to school.
>>>> >I've always assumed anyone in the "WE BUY GOLD" business is either a
>>>> >criminal or, at best, a scammer. I have no idea where people go to sell
>>>> >gold at a price near its value, but I don't it's any of these places.
>>>> As =A0Tony pointed out,these places will buy broken or damaged jewelry wh=
>>> ere
>>>> its value is mostly the gold content. I do think they take into account
>>>> the refining that will need to be done to get the gold in a salable
>>>> condition, and then lower the quoted price below that.
>>>> An investigative reporter could check.
>>>> >> Do the people in Turkey use gold as currency?
>>>> >Does anyone use gold as currency anymore?
>>>> I don't think so. But since Mr. Gursey mentioned the trade in gold in
>>>> Turkey, I wondered if part of it was currency. I assume not though.
>>> US gold coins were tiny before they went out of circulation in 1933 --
>>> my father once showed me a $1 gold coin; it was considerably smaller
>>> and thinner than a dime. (I don't know why he hadn't redeemed it for
>>> silver coins in 1933 -- he was 15 for most of that year -- nor what
>>> happened to it.)
>> If gold was, roughly $35/ounce then, a $1 gold coin would now be 35/1700
>> smaller, roughly 1/50th the size. Hard to keep track of.
> There's no need to make it ridiculously small, it would just
> contain more copper, silver, or whatever they usually mix
> the gold with.
There was a time some portuguese coins weren't worth the copper they were minted... of? on? with?
On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:50:51 +0100, António Marques wrote:
>There was a time some portuguese coins weren't worth the copper they were >minted... of? on? with?
<gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>On Sep 18, 7:27 am, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:20:33 +0100, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
>> <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>> >On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:20:17 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net>
>> >wrote:
>> >>Another interesting contrast between then and now: in some societies parents
>> >>drive their children to school by car even if the school is only a few blocks
>> >>away. Back then a child of 12 walked a couple of hundred miles to school.
>> >Daily?
>> As I said, it was about 200 miles.
>Then why did you mention the comparison with a daily or twice-daily
>commute? (The reason they do that, BTW, is paranoia about
>kidnappings.)
Which part of "contrast" don't you understand?
>> Go figure, as they say in AmE.
>Hunh? What do you think that means?
Calculate, work out, do your sums.
When was the last time you walked 200 miles in a day?
-- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:36:04 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >On Sep 18, 7:27 am, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> >> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:20:33 +0100, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
> >> <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
> >> >On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:20:17 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net>
> >> >wrote:
> >> >>Another interesting contrast between then and now: in some societies parents
> >> >>drive their children to school by car even if the school is only a few blocks
> >> >>away. Back then a child of 12 walked a couple of hundred miles to school.
> >> >Daily?
> >> As I said, it was about 200 miles.
> >Then why did you mention the comparison with a daily or twice-daily
> >commute? (The reason they do that, BTW, is paranoia about
> >kidnappings.)
> Which part of "contrast" don't you understand?
Are you not aware that, even today, children are sent off to boarding
school perhaps hundreds of miles from their home? There's no
"contrast."
> >> Go figure, as they say in AmE.
> >Hunh? What do you think that means?
> Calculate, work out, do your sums.
No, that's not what it means. It means something like, "What an odd
behavior that seems to me, but hey, to each his own."
> When was the last time you walked 200 miles in a day?
I commuted by subway to school every day for eleven years.
> >>>> >I've always assumed anyone in the "WE BUY GOLD" business is either a
> >>>> >criminal or, at best, a scammer. I have no idea where people go to sell
> >>>> >gold at a price near its value, but I don't it's any of these places.
> >>>> As =A0Tony pointed out,these places will buy broken or damaged jewelry wh=
> >>> ere
> >>>> its value is mostly the gold content. I do think they take into account
> >>>> the refining that will need to be done to get the gold in a salable
> >>>> condition, and then lower the quoted price below that.
> >>>> An investigative reporter could check.
> >>>> >> Do the people in Turkey use gold as currency?
> >>>> >Does anyone use gold as currency anymore?
> >>>> I don't think so. But since Mr. Gursey mentioned the trade in gold in
> >>>> Turkey, I wondered if part of it was currency. I assume not though.
> >>> US gold coins were tiny before they went out of circulation in 1933 --
> >>> my father once showed me a $1 gold coin; it was considerably smaller
> >>> and thinner than a dime. (I don't know why he hadn't redeemed it for
> >>> silver coins in 1933 -- he was 15 for most of that year -- nor what
> >>> happened to it.)
> >> If gold was, roughly $35/ounce then, a $1 gold coin would now be 35/1700
> >> smaller, roughly 1/50th the size. Hard to keep track of.
> > There's no need to make it ridiculously small, it would just
> > contain more copper, silver, or whatever they usually mix
> > the gold with.
> There was a time some portuguese coins weren't worth the copper they were
> minted... of? on? with?-
> On Sep 18, 9:50 am, António Marques <antonio...@sapo.pt> wrote:
>> There was a time some portuguese coins weren't worth the copper they were
>> minted... of? on? with?-
> Made of.
> "Minted" is a quite specialized term.
And you find it somehow inappropriate in this quite specialized application?
> On 2012/09/16 12:49, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 15:09:57 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>> If a loaf of bread cost 35c in 1971 (or whenever we started being able
>>> to buy gold at $35 an ounce), then if the increase in the price of
>>> gold tracked inflation, a loaf of bread would sell for ca. $17 today.
>> When a missionary in Zululand sent his son to school at Michaelhouse, 200
>> miles away, at the age of 12, he walked there, driving his fees with
>> him, with
>> the aid of a Zulu cowboy.
>> That was in the 1850s, and the fees were 10 cows.
>> The school fees are still the equivalent of 10 cows today, which just
>> goes to
>> show that Zulu ideas about economics were better.
> I once checked the gold price against typical military salary in (Greek
> or Roman) ancient and modern times, and apart from recent instability in
> gold price, it has been roughly stable.
> Hans
Well, the earth's surface looks _roughly_ like a marble from space, but locally the Alps, etc., give a different impression.
Gold prices have been unstable at other times than the last decade, leading to the desirability of currency that doesn't depend on the supply of, and demand for, gold.
>tony cooper <tony.cooper...@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:28:55 +0800, Robert Bannister
>>>Not all that long ago, if you had a really old heap of a car and it >>>died, you could take it to the wreckers and dump it for free or for, >>>at most, $5. The wrecker made a handsome profit out of the spare >>>parts and tyres. Today, all the scrap places charge the earth to >>>take your junk and then make outrageous profit margins on top of >>>that. Most of them are not outright crooks, but they are not the >>>sort of person you'd want your aged parent to have to deal with.
>> You are seeing this as an Australian. In the US, you could take that
>> junker to an automobile scrap yard and be paid for it. Auto scrap
>> yards are paying about $350 for a vehicle that doesn't run and has be
>> towed in. There's a strong market for used automobile parts, so the
>> scrap yard can pay $350, part out the car, sell the hulk for scrap,
>> and make money.
ObAUE: 'Part out' is 'break' here.
>UK also. I know someone who very recently got 200 quid for a broken
>car.
Drat! I only got 80. It was a runner, too, and had a nearly new, still shiny exhaust and a brand new fuel filter. (And a rock solid 22-year-old engine. Who says French cars are shit?*)
Actually, I don't think I was ripped off. There are only a couple of hundred of that model still on the road**, so the breaker will have to hang on to the parts for a long time or forever. And someone who was going to bung it straight in the crusher only offered 40.
===
*My brother for one, but then he pretends to hate everything French. It's his shtick. (As far as I can gather, it was spawned by a disturbing encounter with a corrupt French mayor many years ago.) Then there's the MOT-tester who spent ten minutes or more lecturing me about how awful French cars are after he had just failed my then 20-year-old French car (which hadn't been serviced for at least 5 years) solely because of a slightly delaminated number plate and a slightly blocked screen-washer nozzle. The prick.
<gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>On Sep 18, 10:47 am, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:36:04 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> >On Sep 18, 7:27 am, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>> >> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:20:33 +0100, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
>> >> <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>> >> >On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:20:17 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net>
>> >> >wrote:
>> >> >>Another interesting contrast between then and now: in some societies parents
>> >> >>drive their children to school by car even if the school is only a few blocks
>> >> >>away. Back then a child of 12 walked a couple of hundred miles to school.
>> >> >Daily?
>> >> As I said, it was about 200 miles.
>> >Then why did you mention the comparison with a daily or twice-daily
>> >commute? (The reason they do that, BTW, is paranoia about
>> >kidnappings.)
>> Which part of "contrast" don't you understand?
>Are you not aware that, even today, children are sent off to boarding
>school perhaps hundreds of miles from their home? There's no
>"contrast."
Well, if you ask nicely, perhaps someone with better reading skills might
explain it to you.
>> >> Go figure, as they say in AmE.
>> >Hunh? What do you think that means?
>> Calculate, work out, do your sums.
>No, that's not what it means. It means something like, "What an odd
>behavior that seems to me, but hey, to each his own."
>> When was the last time you walked 200 miles in a day?
>I commuted by subway to school every day for eleven years.
I hope you committed no nuisance in it.
-- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
On Sep 18, 12:39 pm, Glenn Knickerbocker <N...@bestweb.net> wrote:
> On 9/18/2012 12:18 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Sep 18, 9:50 am, António Marques <antonio...@sapo.pt> wrote:
> >> There was a time some portuguese coins weren't worth the copper they were
> >> minted... of? on? with?-
> > Made of.
> > "Minted" is a quite specialized term.
> And you find it somehow inappropriate in this quite specialized application?
Yes, because "not worth the X it's made of" is a standard cliche'.
On Sep 18, 1:28 pm, sn...@spambin.fsnet.co.uk (Sn!pe) wrote:
> Jared <jared4...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Well, the earth's surface looks _roughly_ like a marble from space, but
> > locally the Alps, etc., give a different impression.
> ITYF that proportionally Earth is smoother than a billiard* ball.
> No argument about the local perception of the Alps, BTW.
> * US - pool; alternate UK - snooker
Except we don't say "pool ball" out of the blue, and expecially in the
"smooth as" context.
